French and Riviera News Wednesday 14th February 2018

French Riviera local news

Local

Man placed in custody for threatening behavior - A man has been placed in police custody in Antibes after terrorizing fellow passengers with a dummy weapon. Police on Tuesday afternoon boarded the train in Antibes after being alerted by passengers. The man was under the influence of alcohol and in possession of narcotics at the time of his arrest.

Strike Action - Due to a teachers strike at least eight schools and two canteens will be closed in Nice on Thursday. Three elementary schools, four nursery schools, a primary school, as well as two school canteens are planning strike action as unions protest against the lack of teaching posts allocated in the Alpes Maritimes. See list below for more information.

According to the provisional list provided by the municipality: three elementary schools (Chalet des Roses, Papon, Saint-Barthélémy 1), four nursery schools (Manoir, Righi, Saint-Barthélémy, Rancher) and a primary school (Rothschild 1), as well as two school restaurants (Rancher Kindergarten and Rothschild Kindergarten

Court – Meanwhile disruption to the court service is expected this Thursday, as unions have called on public servants at the Nice Court, to stage a day of action. The two main unions involved are planning a protest rally on the steps of the courthouse at 10am.

National

Measles epidemic - Health authorities in south western France, which has been hit by a measles epidemic, have reminded the public of the dangers of the virus after a young woman died. The young woman died in hospital in the city of Poitiers. The 32-year-old woman had not been vaccinated against the virus. She was admitted to hospital on February 1st and quickly transferred to intensive care but not did survive.

Lactalis – French media has announced that thirty additional families are to lodge a complaint on Thursday with the Paris procecutor’s office against French dairy manufacturer Lactalis in connection with the salmonella-contaminated milk scandal. The families are accusing the company of "endangering the lives of others" and "involuntary injuries".

Baccalaureate reform - The French Minister of Education will today present the new baccalaureate. The reform will see the exam consist of four written tests and one oral exam. Outside of the four final tests students will be marked on a system of continuous control.

National Service - Young people will once again be subject to compulsory military service in France, as the government confirmed on Tuesday that the requirement, promised during Emmanuel Macron’s election campaign, is coming and will be mandatory. Final plans, being drawn up at the moment, are expected to be announced in April, with the minimum mandatory service being between three and six months.

Business

Asian shares have turned mixed this morning with investors fretting over today’s US inflation report that could either sooth or inflame concerns over the pace of interest rate hikes.
Strong demand for the yen has also seen the dollar fall to a 15 month low against the Japanese currency at 107.01 yen.
Investors will be watching for the US consumer price report which is out later today amid signs that it was concern over rising inflation which triggered last week’s sell off in the first place.
Headline consumer price inflation is forecast to slow to an annual rate of 1.9 percent with core inflation slowing to 1.7 percent.
The concern is that the numbers could come on the high side as wages did a couple of weeks ago.

Sky and BT Sport have won the rights to broadcast English Premier League football games for three seasons from 2019 to 2020.
The package is worth 4.46 billion pounds and covers 5 of the 7 bundles that the Premier League has put up for auction.
The League said that interest for the remaining two packages has attracted the interest of “multiple bidders” raising the prospect that online giants including Facebook,Amazon,Netflix and Twitter may enter the market.
Sky Sports will broadcast 128 games per season including 32 Saturday evening matches while BT Sport has 32 matches on Saturday lunchtime.
The rights work out to around 9.3 million pounds per game.
Bidding for the remaining 2 packages will conclude today.

And-UK consumer price inflation remained at 3 percent in January-the same rate as in December.
Most economists had been expecting a slight fall in the rate to 2.9 percent but figures released by the Office for National Statistics saw inflation remain near November’s 6 year high of 3.1 percent.
Last week,the Bank of England said that interest rates might rise sooner than expected when it said that it wanted to get inflation closer to 2 percent within two years rather than 3.

Sport

Winter Olympics-Germany still leads the way in the medals table on day 5 of the Games in Pyeongchang.
Germany has 5 gold medals in a total haul of 9 with the Netherlands in second place with 4 gold medals and Norway in third place with 3 gold medals.
A little earlier this morning Shaun White of the United States took gold in the men’s snowboard half-pipe after failing to win a medal at the last Games.The “Flying Tomato”clinched the USA’s 100th gold medal at the Winter Olympics with only Norway having won more on 121.
There’s action in curling today with team GB looking to make an impact as well as Ice Hockey,luge,speed skating and Nordic combined.

Football-Spurs fought back well in their European Champions League knock out game against Juventus last night,coming from 2-0 down to draw the match 2 all and take two vital away goals into the return leg at Wembley.
In the other match last night Manchester City thrashed Basel 4-0 away from home.

There are two more Champions League knock out games tonight.Porto play Liverpool and Real Madrid host PSG.

There was 1 game in the Scottish Premiership last night.Kilmarnock beat Dundee 3-2 and in the English Championship Cardiff beat Bolton 2-0 and Sheffield Wednesday beat Derby 2-0.

Rugby Union-The France head coach Jacques Brunel has dropped a number of players from the squad for the 6 Nations game against Italy following a night out in Edinburgh after last weekend’s Scotland match.
Among those dropped is the tournament’s leading try scorer Teddy Thomas.
Scottish police questioned some French players at Edinburgh airport following an allegation of a sexual assault but no charges have been brought.
Brunel says that the players behaviour was “inappropriate”.

World Rugby has admitted that the television match official made a mistake in not awarding Wales a try against England at Twickenham last weekend.
The TMO ruled that Anthony Watson beat Gareth Anscome to the ball but World Rugby has admitted that the decision was an error.
The Wales coach Warren Gatland was furious with the decision.England won the game 12-6.

Sam Simmonds will miss England’s next two 6 Nations games after picking up a shoulder injury against Wales.
Simmonds should be fit in time for the Ireland game on March the 17th and is likely to be replaced at number 8 by Nathan Hughes who’s recovered from injury.

Cricket-Ben Stokes is on his way to New Zealand to join up with the England squad after appearing in court in Bristol charged with affray.
Stokes was charged following an incident outside a nightclub at the end of September.He’s pleaded not guilty and was granted bail ahead of a Crown Court date in March.
He won’t be considered initially for the tri-nations Twenty20 tournament against New Zealand and Australia but could feature in the Test series against New Zealand.
England lost their third Twenty20 in row on Tuesday after being beaten by 12 runs in Wellington by New Zealand.

Weather

Clear skies with light to moderate variable winds and a high of 11 degrees.

Overnight lows of 6 degrees on the coast and 2 degrees inland with a touch frost in places.

Thursday and Friday -Mainly fine with a high of 11-12 degrees.

Finally

NHS figures in the UK have revealed that Valentine’s Day sparks a ‘mini baby boom’, The most romantic night leads to a five per cent rise in births and Valentine's Day is second only to Xmas for the number of babies conceived

Analysis of data from 2015 shows that there were 16,263 babies conceived in the week of Valentine’s Day. The figure was up on 15,427 during an average week.

Another 16,344 were conceived the following week, as love continued to be in the air.